Our Week in Review June 22-28th

We have had some bright sunny and hot days this week and a few strong storms.  One of those storms made me feel like I was having a Wizard of Oz moment.  It was calm and still and then all of a sudden the temperature dropped, the wind started blowing. and the clouds started rolling in.  We hurried the animals into the barn and ran down to the house.  Luckily it wasn't anything worse then some strong winds and rain and the worst was over a short time later.  Another day this week it was raining really, really, hard and I couldn't find my girls in the house.  They were on the front porch coloring.  After the rain let up some they grabbed some umbrellas and had a great time playing in the rain.  Even as I am typing this it is raining outside but I think it is supposed to clear up in a few hours.


I have had some extra work outside this week.  Christian had an infected ingrown toenail and could not put his boots on so I had to do his outside chores.  Then Lily had a bee fly into her boot and sting her on top of her foot.  Her foot swelled up and she couldn't put her boot on either!  Later in the week Alex dropped a gate on my foot but I could still get my shoes on.  Something about feet this week!

Yes that is a chicken roosting on the roof of our barn! Why?  Who knows!

When you spend a lot of time with your animals you can tell when they are just not acting right.  One of our babies seemed to be acting a little off earlier in the week so Alex and I went out to check him out after the storm and found an abscess under his front leg.  We had to drain it (fun!) and spray it and give him antibiotic.  The next day we drained it again and have continued to spray it.  That goat is so mad at me he will not let me anywhere near him still.  He runs every time he sees me coming!

We continue to battle the parasite issue in our goats.  One of the mamas was acting odd the other day and would not go near her food.  We went to check her and the inside lid of her eye was almost white.  That is a sign that the goat is extremely anemic.  We have separated her leaving food and water and hay for her all day hoping that she will eat a bit at a time.  She has lost a lot of weight and is lethargic.  We gave her two different kinds of worm medicine at the same time and have been giving her vitamin B12.  Hoping she will recover.


My girls wanted some craft supplies because we are so low on everything.  We grabbed some beads, buttons, sequins, yarn, and paint.  They have been busy making bracelets that spell things out and Lily made a dream catcher.  I didn't get pictures of any of them.

Christian and Anthony have been learning how to create their own video game on the computer using code.  Coding is not my thing so I don't understand much of it but they are learning and enjoying doing it.

We went for a walk this week at the park and Liam spied the playground on our way out he said ,"Mimi stop!  I want to play!" so we stopped and played for a little while before it got too hot.

Our pigs had to go to the vet this week to get a blood test so we could have papers to take them to shows.  They went up the ramp into the trailer so easy!  Much better experience this year from last year. I hope that part of it continues to be easy especially as they grow!

Our camper roof had a leak so we are replacing the roof.  Not fun!  Art is trying to get it fixed before our trip next week but it keeps raining.

The girls recorded Rejoice in the Lord on handbells and chimes Tuesday night to play over the radio yesterday during what is supposed to be collecting of the offering at church. Since there is no actual congregation in the building the offering is not actually collected but the service over the radio follows the same format as if people are really in the church.  They did a great job! It was beautiful!

Nicholas got his move in date for college.  They are supposed to be moving into the dorms August 9th to start classes on August 11th and go til November 20th.  They will not return to the campus until mid January.  We are preparing as if he is actually going to go, but I still wonder if it will really happen or not.  Covid cases are on the rise in Arkansas to go along with the large amount of testing they are doing. And aside from the college saying they are taking precautions to ensure everyone's safety (mandatory masks, shield, cleaning, things like that) they have not said what will happen when there is an outbreak on campus.  With the contact tracing right now you are quarantined if you come in contact with a person that tests positive for two weeks or until you have a negative test.  How will they handle that on a college campus with students being in dorms, cafeterias, and different classrooms when someone tests positive?  Sending kids to college under normal circumstances is stressful.  This year it is much worse!  His high school graduation is scheduled for July 17th.  Waiting to see of it will really happen or not.

I have started planning for next year in our homeschool!  This is the first year in 11 years that I have not been committed to writing a lot of product reviews.  The really good thing about that is I can choose our curriculum and we can work on what we want to instead of being committed to things that we may not want or need to do.  The negative side to that is I have to buy more this year then I normally would.  But, I think the freedom of choosing outweighs the cost for me right now.  I am excited about the things I have decided to buy and am working on doing a little shelf shopping from my house to figure out the best fit for a few other things.  I hopefully will be posting about all of this very soon!

We finally finished Lord of the Rings as our nigh time read aloud.  I need to find something else to start reading for the boys. We are about halfway through with Courageous Love by Susan K Marlow for the girls.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

Our Week (weeks) in Review June 8-21

Our days have been mostly the same.  After waking and eating breakfast we go outside and take care of animals, complete some household chores, and back outside until lunch.  After lunch the children had been swimming and working on indoor activities until after supper when it was time to go back out to take care of animals again.  In the evenings we have been working on outdoor projects and swimming again. 

Except Wednesdays when we go to the park to walk and then have a picnic at Chelsea's.  This week we actually played on the playground for the first time since February.

And Fridays when the girls have music lessons and we head to the church for that.

We did have some animal excitement with a pig that needed some extra watching over (I had to call the people we bought him from to come look him over!) and some medicine but he seems to be better now.

Willow is really walking now.  She is all over the place!  She went from taking just a few steps to crossing the room in just a few days.


And Liam turned 3!  It has been a fast three years.  Chelsea had rented a little condo at the lake and invited us to come up for a few hours to celebrate Liam's birthday.  The swim beaches are still closed (the state has opened them but our local swim beaches opted to stay closed) so we couldn't swim but we did walk down to the marina to get snow cones.  Liam had a really good time opening his presents and eating his cake. He is such a big boy now!

Nick and Alex both were hired at Sonic.  They are not working the same shifts (this is not a bad thing) but it is close enough that we can provide transportation for Alex.  His scheduled road test for August was cancelled due to Covid.  They are not reopening anytime soon so if he wants to take it we have to go to a "big" city about an hour away.  We need to make plans and figure out when he can be ready to go take it.

Our pool sprang a leak :(   We cannot find it so our swimming days may be at an end.  It will be a long hot summer with no pool and no swim beach.  We can swim off our camp site on our next camping trip in a few weeks though so there is that :) and we do have a sprinkler.

Questions About Homeschooling: What Are the Legal Requirements?

I am not a lawyer.  I can only speak of homeschool laws that I have researched myself for the state of Arkansas.  Each state has it's own homeschool rules and regulations.  They vary from incredibly strict to very lenient depending on the state that you live in.  If you are interested in homeschooling and would like to know your state's homeschool laws a good place to start is the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.  You can find each state's laws here.



To homeschool a child in Arkansas, you must be the parent or guardian of the child that will be homeschooled.  Schooling is required for students ages 5-17, although you can delay kindergarten for 5 year olds by filling out a waiver.  The state requires that you fill out a Notice of Intent.  This is a very simple one page form asking information such as address, name, phone number, names, ages, birth dates, grade, and last school attended for each of the children.  It will also ask which children if any plan on participating in any interscholastic activities or getting a GED.  You have to sign that you understand you are responsible for the education of your children.  There is a spot to get the form notarized.  This is not a requirement.  Until last year students getting a driver's license needed to show a notarized form, that requirement has been changed.  You can file your form online, in person, or by mail.  You can find the form here. Forms must be received by your local superintendent by August 15th.  During the school year you can choose to withdraw your child and begin homeschooling.  The district can require you to wait two weeks before homeschooling, the superintendent can waive the waiting period.

That's it.  That is the only legal requirement in the state of Arkansas.

You do not have to take standardized tests.

You do not have to get your curriculum or schedule approved.

You do not have required courses to teach. (If you are homeschooling a high schooler I do recommend looking at the requirements for your local district and following the recommended credits.)

You do not have to submit any kind of paperwork showing attendance,shot records, or any kind of portfolio of your student's work.

You do not have to be approved and you do not have to answer to anyone.


A couple of things I did want to mention that you may be interested to know.

In 2013, The Tim Tebow Law was passed in Arkansas allowing homeschoolers to participate in extra curricular activities in their resident school district.  In 2017 year, Act 592 was passed allowing homeschoolers to participate in these activities in any school in the state, not just their own district.  Now, there are some conditions to this.  You have to have permission from the superintendent in the district that you live in and the superintendent from the school you want to participate in.  If either one objects you cannot participate. If you are trying to participate in a AAA run activity, the student must wait 365 days upon approval before being able to compete, but can participate immediately in practices.  So if your 9th grade child wants to play football and you get approval this year, they can practice with the team this year but cannot play in any games until next year, unless they are entering 7th grade then they can play in games/competitions immediately.  The school district can require your child to take a class.  Many activities like track, football, cheerleading and band take place during the school day and counts as a class.  Any activity that takes place after school can require your child to be in school for one class period a day to participate in that activity. This is up to the school.  You also may have to provide standardized test scores to prove your child's academic eligibility.

It is legal for homeschoolers to enroll in individual academic classes in their local public school.  If for instance there is one class your child wants to take, like robotics, they can enroll in just that class.  The regulations vary depending on the district so check with your local district.

Homeschoolers are eligible to take concurrent classes.  The rules vary by the district but any opportunity that is given to public school students have to be extended to homeschoolers as well.  Many colleges will allow homeschoolers to register at a reduced cost for concurrent classes but if your district offers public schoolers college classes for free homeschoolers are able to take these as well for free.


Public schools have to recognize coursework done by homeschoolers.  This means if your child has been homeschooled and then enters public school, the school has to recognize the classes they completed while being homeschooled.  The school will require a transcript and some may want other proof.


Something else I wanted to mention because I know this worries a lot of working parents.  You can work and homeschool.  Legally you are the one in charge of your child's education.  You cannot pay someone to homeschool your children.  But you can pay for child care.  You can leave schoolwork for your child to complete during the day.  You can also choose to school in the evenings or on the week-ends if you have to work during the day.  There are no laws requiring that school work must be completed between the hours of 8-3 on Monday through Friday.  Your schedule and coursework is completely up to you.

Happy Homeschooling!

Questions About Homeschooling: How Long Does it Take Each Day?

In this series of posts I am going to try and answer some of the most common questions people have about homeschooling.  One of the first questions I am asked is about the time commitment.  I am not an expert, I can only write about my experiences over the last 15 years in homeschooling my 7 children.

I do have to say that each state has it own set of regulations.  You need to look into what your state requires of homeschoolers and follow the homeschool laws in your state.  Here in Arkansas we have no regulations on what subjects we are required to teach, or how many hours we must spend, or how may days must be in our school year. 

Homeschools are not the same as the public school and you cannot use the 6-7 hour a day guideline that they use to determine how long it will take you to homeschool.  In a homeschool you are working one on one with your children not teaching to an entire class.  You also do not need time to line children up to go to recess or art or the lunchroom.  This cuts down a significant portion of time.  So how do you know how much time to spend, how long to spend on each subject or how many subjects your children should be learning?

When it comes to deciding how many subjects your child should be learning, that is going to vary not just from family to family, but from child to child.  When people are just starting homeschooling I recommend starting with the basics; reading, writing, and arithmetic. Then I suggest basing other subjects on their child's interest.  For example when my son Nicholas was 7 he was fascinated with American History and learning all of the presidents so for history that year we studied the presidents.  Anthony loved the stars one year so our science focus was on astronomy.  4 of my children have used a spelling curriculum each year, the other 3 were natural spellers and there was no point making them write lists of words that they could already spell.  I spend lots of time reading aloud.  You would be surprised too how much children can learn about a wide variety of subjects just by listening to you read aloud good, living books. I choose both fiction and nonfiction books about things that the children are interested in.  I have learned so much with them by reading to them! Do not base your subjects on what other people do/do not do. You have to figure out what subjects work best for you and what your children are interested in learning. 

How long do you need to spend on each subject?  For some subjects that is pretty easy to figure out. Most math books for example are set up to complete a page a day. Other curricula come with a Teacher's Guide telling you what you should complete each day.  But some things are not so cut and dry.  I read this recommendation once that said spend 2 to 2.5 times the child's age per subject every school day. A 6 year old should spend around 12-15 minutes per day on each subject, while a 12 year old should spend 25-30 minutes. This to me makes perfect sense. By using the age as a guideline, it helps me keep the lessons age appropriate for the child's attention span. It is not a hard and fast rule, but a guideline to follow. There are times when we get finished with some things a little faster or times when something may take a bit longer. When I combine subjects with many different ages, like our Bible lesson, I try to keep it towards the lower end of the age range.

How much of a time commitment will you really need to spend on schooling each day?  That will depend on the ages of your children and the curriculum you choose. In my house I currently have 5 children homeschooling ages 9-16.  We follow a 4 days per week schedule and take Fridays off.  My school hours are from 9:30-11 and then 12:30-2.  That does not mean that all of the children are working every minute of that time.  It's the amount of time that I plan on each day for working with or reading to my children.  Our morning hours are for together subjects and our afternoon hours are for individual subjects.


 Don't stress about whether or not you are spending the "right" amount of time on school. Each individual situation is different. Do what works for you and your family at this point in your life and try not to compare your homeschool to anyone else's.

Happy Homeschooling!

Our Week in Review June 1-7th

One of the things that keep us pretty busy is our animals.  We currently have 1 dog, 1 inside cat, 3 outside cats, 2 rabbits, 8 chickens (the girls favorite chicken Mrs. Feathers died last week...she was 9 years old!), 2 pigs, and 10 goats.  Raising livestock is a lot of work and can be frustrating and sad at times but I think it is worth the time and effort (and money!) we put in.  Besides teaching the children  the responsibility of taking care of animals we have learned so much about the health and care of animals, the production and commercial side of livestock, seen first hand the life cycle of chickens, rabbits, and goats, and so much more.  It is different raising animals to show then it is just to raise them.  We have to do different things with feed and supplements then you would if you were just having a goat to eat pasture grass. We spend a lot of time with our animals and it has been the most normal thing we have had going on since the Covid 19 Pandemic started.

Chickens and rabbits are some of the easiest animals to start out raising.  The hardest thing about rabbits is that they are sensitive to heat and heat stroke.  Chickens and rabbits pretty much just need clean food and water and places to sleep and be out of the weather. Goats and pigs are a little harder.  They still need food, water, and shelter.  Stalls have to be cleaned out every day sometimes more then once a day. We have to lotion and brush pigs and brush goats. We have to practice walking pigs and goats and goats also need to be braced. Goats need to have the hooves trimmed regularly and if they have horns they need to be tipped.  Pigs need to be bathed regularly and clipped for shows.  Goats need to be bathed and clipped for shows. Pigs are sensitive to heat so we have to have a fan on them and spritz them with water several times a day.

Goats have to be dewormed often.  This year we have had a horrible problem with worms in our goats.  The wormer we used to use has stopped being effective and we had some serious issues in our herd.  We switched to a different one which helped but not as much as it should.  We had to give another 3 day round this week but I am not confident that it will solve the problem.  We also had to give baby goats vaccines this week and band our boys so they will be wethers (bucks cannot show and we don't want more then one buck anyway.)

Our pile of dirt arrived this week so we began shoveling it into the barn to level it all out.  After the pigs rolled all through it they were filthy and since it got so hot outside I thought it would be a good idea to walk Scarlett to the hose and give her a bath.  She had never been walked outside the front of the pen before, just inside the pasture fence.  She started out doing ok until a sound spooked her and she bolted.  Our barn is still not completely finished and there was an wire fence panel leaning up against the outside of the pen.  When she ran she hit that wire panel just right on the edge and it went straight into her side(like a puncture)  and then left a big scratch down her side.  We got her settled, hosed off and back to the pen and she started throwing up.  I was really afraid there was some serious damage.  We sprayed her down with some antibiotic spray and called my pig expert and sent her pictures of the wound.  She told us to watch her and watch the site and see how the pig was acting and what the wound looked like in a few hours.  She seemed fine and it didn't look too horrible so we kept watching and waiting.  That was Thursday.  She still has a scratch and a small lump where it punctured and we are still spraying her with an antibiotic spray twice a day but she is eating and drinking and acting normal so hopefully she will not get an infection and will recover completely.  Sometimes it feels like no matter how hard we try we can't win.  But that's the way it goes sometimes.  You can't control everything! (at least that's what I try to remind myself.)

We kept the babies for a little while on Monday so their mama could do some work for her summer classes.

When we returned them the girls went and practiced the chimes.  The next day we went and recorded the girls on chimes along with their friend on violin and their music teacher on piano playing God is so Good to be played Sunday during the radio worship service.  Though Arkansas churches were given permission to open May 4th our church has elected to stay closed and continue broadcasting over the radio.  Hearing them play brought me great joy.

We went and walked at the park this week.  4 H sent out a scavenger hunt project and Lily was very excited about it.  She took  my phone during our walk because there were several things she wanted to get photos of for the scavenger hunt while we were there.  She needs a red bird still, it flew away before she could get the photo.

Nick had his online freshman orientation to pick his classes.  He will be taking Calculus 1, Comp 1, Computer Science, Computer Science Lab, Freshman Orientation, and World History (17 credits.) His financial aid online session is tomorrow. Nick and Alex were both hired at Sonic this week and completed their online training work at home this week-end.

It was very hot and humid this week!  We were glad that the pool lasted another year.  The children have swam for hours!

Our evening read alouds are The Last Ride by Susan K Marlow and The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!